


Help me Find a Way (carry us away)

by DarlingNikki



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cuddling & Snuggling, Cuddly Derek, M/M, Road Trips, Sharing a Bed, Wolf!Derek, off screen character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-02
Updated: 2014-04-02
Packaged: 2018-01-17 21:49:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1403668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarlingNikki/pseuds/DarlingNikki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is done.  He can't stay, he won't stay, so he leaves Beacon Hills, with Derek as his road trip partner and only a vague sense of needing to get away to guide them.  He's lost everything, and this is the only way he has left to cope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Help me Find a Way (carry us away)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fictionalfaerie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictionalfaerie/gifts).



> Yep, blame FictionalFaerie for this, she sent me a link to this tumblr photoset. She begged and I am very susceptible to her begging since she's my best friend, and so this story was born. Title is from Ice Age by How to Destroy Angels, which coincidentally I listened to on repeat while I cranked this story out in one sitting. This is my first published Teen Wolf story, whoohoo! More to follow more than likely.

Stiles shows up at Derek's loft the day after the funeral. His clothes are drenched and dripping on the floor; he doesn't seem bothered by it though. He doesn't even seem to notice the water. Derek looks Stiles over seeing a bedraggled figure filled with some manic light burning in his eyes highlighting the deep bruises underneath his eyes.

Stiles is twitchy, twitchier than normal at least, the kid has always been a bit jerky in his movements, still growing into his limbs, but this is different. This frightens Derek. Stiles looks like he is ready to fly apart at the seams. When he starts talking, it doesn't reassure Derek at all.

“I need to get away. I can't stay here. I can't stay anymore. I just need to...” His voice catches and his eyes finally focus on Derek for the first time since he'd shown up. “Leave.”

Derek moves aside from the doorway and pulls Stiles inside. “Where will you go?” Derek feels a dull ache in his chest and it's getting harder to breath.

Stiles lips move, but no sound comes just the sound of air being expelled from his lungs. “Not here. Anywhere, just away.” His lips are chapped and rough, and Derek is pretty sure that he's wearing the same outfit as last night. “I've got my bags packed and waiting in the jeep.”

Derek nods. Stiles is going to leave, and then Derek will lose something else important, something else he will never be able to get back. In the back of Derek's mind, he can hear the crackle of flames. “Need company?” Nothing is really keeping him here anyway. Peter fucks off whenever it suits him. Cora decided to never come back. Issac has Scott. Derek is just that loser that can't leave the past behind.

Stiles looks startled at first, but he's nodding. “Yeah, I'd like that.” He walks deeper into the loft. “But we're leaving tonight.”

Derek walks to his room and starts to shove his meager collection of belongings in a bag. After the fire, he'd never had the courage to begin collecting useless junk. He'd learned too well that becoming attached to anything or anyone was a terrible idea. Everything he owns, other than his car fits into a single bag. “We're taking my car, Stiles. I don't want to drive around in that rust bucket you call a Jeep.”

“Don't care, just want to leave this fucking town, now if possible.”

Derek hefts his bag and walks out of the loft, and Stiles is close on his heels. Derek doesn't notice that Stiles leaves his phone laying out in the open in the middle of the floor, where no one will miss finding it if they bother to look.

Stiles sent one final text to Scott before he sat it down, “Please don't look for me.”

* * *

 

They drive through the night without stopping for longer than a few minutes to refuel and use a restroom in a scummy gas station a couple of hours away from Beacon Hills. Derek can sense that Stiles wants as much distance as possible, so he drives fast on deserted back roads heading North. They don't have a plan, but when dawn breaks pink and orange over the sky they stop at the very next shitty motel they find. Half the letters in the neon sign are burned out and unreadable, but a double room only costs forty dollars, and the old guy working the front desk doesn't comment about the fact that Stiles is obviously underage.

Stiles collapses face down on the cheap polyester comforter and almost immediately starts snoring. He didn't even bother to crawl under the blankets or take off his shoes. Derek sighs and pulls his sneakers off and sits them on the floor next to the bed before Derek takes his jeans off and crawls into his own bed.

It smells awful. Derek can smell stale sweat and the musky scent of sex on the unwashed bedding.

It takes what seems like a small eternity to fall asleep.

Derek wakes up, instantly alert, not sure what woke him up. He sits up and looks around the room, and sees Stiles in the other bed. His shoulders are shaking, and then it hits Derek, salt and water, Stiles is crying. “Stiles,” he calls out softly, but Stiles doesn't respond. He's still asleep.

Derek climbs out of his bed and moves over to Stiles's side. He runs his hand over Stiles's shoulder blades, and Stiles stretches closer. Derek knows this. After, after Kate, after the fire, he used to be like this. Laura would crawl into bed with him and curl around his body and hold him close. Protect him from the things he couldn't face, surround him with the scent of pack, and not alone. It's the easiest thing in the world for Derek to do the same for Stiles. He lays down and curls himself around Stiles's body, wrapping an arm across his stomach.

Stiles's tears taper off, and he curls closers around the warmth that is Derek's body. Derek finds it easier to fall asleep again, now that he's next to Stiles.

* * *

 

They don't talk about it in the morning when they wake up.

* * *

 

They take turns driving that day when they leave. Stiles talks about inconsequential things. He tells Derek about his World of Warcraft characters. At the diner they stop at for lunch, Stiles rhapsodies about how amazing the curly fries are, and how man has become god through the invention of bacon cheeseburgers with onion rings on them. Stiles never talks about what prompted him to want to leave Beacon Hills. Derek doesn't feel like poking at an obviously exposed wound. Stiles will talk when he's ready, and nothing good will come of forcing him before he is.

When they stop for the night, they get a single room, and curl up under the blankets together.

* * *

 

They cross California's border into Oregon two days later. They're not completely exhausted for once. So they lay in bed together flipping through the channels on the old television on the dresser, not really watching anything, but just passing the time.

They stop when they see Stiles's face on the screen. It's a national news channel. The anchor, blond and coiffed, is talking about him. “The seventeen year old son of recently deceased Sheriff of Beacon Hills, California had been declared missing. If you have any information, please call the number at the bottom of the screen.” She stumbles over Stiles's name, butchering it horribly.

Stiles groans, “No one can ever say my name right. Turn it off.” His voice raises high and panicky, “Please, just turn it off.” Stiles goes silent when the TV shuts off, staring off into the distance. The circles under his eyes are as pronounced as they were the day that they'd left. Derek doesn't say anything. There are no words that exist in any language that will comfort Stiles right now. Instead, he wraps his arms around Stiles's chest and pulls him closer, burying his nose in Stiles's hair taking deep inhales of Stiles's scent.

Eventually they drift into an uneasy slumber.

* * *

 

Derek wakes to Stiles screaming. “No,” he sobs, “not him, please not him.” Stiles sounds like his heart is breaking, and his voice is hoarse from shouting. Derek gently, oh so very gently, careful of his immense strength because for all that Stiles is strong, physically Derek knows it would be easy to break him, shakes Stiles awake.

“Come on, Stiles, you've got to wake up,” Derek whispers in a low urgent voice because if he doesn't wake up Stiles soon, someone is going to call the cops. “Wake up, it's just a dream. You're safe here.” Stiles gasps, and blinks blearily at Derek.

“Wha?” He slurs sleepily.

“You were having a nightmare.”

“Oh.” Stiles sounds lost, still half caught in the throws of whatever visions his dreams were showing him.

“We need to leave.” Derek buries his face in Stiles's hair again, “If they call the cops, it won't be good.”

Stiles half jumps out of the bed and begins to throw their items into their bags, not even bothering to separate their items. He pulls on one of Derek's henleys, and throws a pair of jeans towards Derek. In less than five minutes he has everything packed up, “Let's go then.”

* * *

 

They drive for a full day straight, only stopping when absolutely necessary, eating fast food in the car.

Stiles doesn't mention what he dreamed about, and Derek doesn't ask. He's pretty sure he knows anyway.

* * *

 

When they finally stop, they find another shitty motel, but this one is on the very edge of the town, near a large forest. Tonight's the full moon. That night they leave the room empty and walk into the forest. Derek shifts into his massive wolf shape and runs back and forth, getting a bit ahead of Stiles, almost out of sight, then coming back and bumping into the back of Stiles's knees causing him to stumble. The exuberance that Derek displays distracts Stiles, makes him smile fondly.

They wander the wildlife trails for hours, until Stiles's feet ache and his chest hurts, until they find a small clearing deep in the forest and Derek sits on the cold ground and Stiles flops bonelessly next to him. Derek shoves his nose against Stiles's side and shoves until he is right up next to Stiles, halfway to crawling into his lap, and Stiles brings his arms around to circle around Derek's warmth.

Derek huffs at Stiles and Stiles buries his face in Derek's fur.

Stiles begins to speak, “You know what, Derek?” His voice is muffled from being buried in Derek's fur, but Derek can still understand every single word. “I thought, I thought I could keep him safe.” He laughs bitterly, “I though if he didn't know, that nothing could hurt him.” Stiles's hands tighten into Derek's fur. “I thought I could protect him, but I was so wrong.” Stiles voice gets small, “Why couldn't I protect him? He was all I had left,” Stiles sobs, “and it's my fault.”

Derek shifts his head to lay against Stiles's shoulder. He could shift back, but Stiles is talking about it for once, and Derek doesn't want him to stop. He doesn't want Stiles to let this fester inside of him.

“If I'd told him, then maybe he wouldn't have been out there. Maybe could've gotten Argent to give him some bullets or something.” Stiles sobs again, “But I thought I knew what was best. I was so fucking smart. I knew everything about the supernatural, I didn't need to tell my dad anything.” He continues, “I was so fucking wrong. I was so wrong, and now he's dead, and it's all my fault.” Stiles begins to cry in earnest, his words losing coherency, and Derek allows him to purge it from himself like expelling poison. Eventually Stiles drops off into an exhausted slumber, and Derek and him sleep in the middle of the dark forest wrapped up in each other.

* * *

 

In the morning, when they are back inside of the hotel room, Derek looks Stiles straight in the eye and tells him, “It wasn't your fault, and your father wouldn't want you to think it was.” Derek brushes past Stiles and claims the shower for himself, leaving Stiles to mull over his words.

* * *

 

They don't speak of what happened on the full moon after that.

* * *

 

Eventually they leave Oregon, heading southeast into Nevada.

They don't speak of their conversation, but after it, Stiles's smiles come more easily again. He laughs, and Derek finds himself laughing with him, which is something that hasn't come easily to Derek in years now.

“Dude, I want to visit the Grand Canyon!” Stiles looks over at Derek, “Can we go?”

Derek grins, “We've got no where else to be.”

* * *

 

They go to a reservation to see it. One of the American Indian tribes have it set up so you can visit it, and go right up to the edge, with no fence between you and the edge. It's a stark beauty, stone worn down by a river and time, and Stiles goes right up to the very edge and peers down at it. He can see all the way to the bottom and the insane distance leaves him reeling back into Derek's solid chest, panting from vertigo. “Okay, I've saw it. Wow, that is very far. I think I'm good now.”

Derek laughs at Stiles, and drapes his arm over Stiles's shoulder. “You happy now?”

“Well,” Stiles's stomach grumbles, “I think I could use some food now.”

“You want curly fries again, don't you?”

“Well, they are the food of the gods, all crispy and flavorful and absolutely perfect.”

Derek laughs and leads Stiles back to their car.

* * *

 

They cross from Nevada into Arizona, and then Arizona into New Mexico.

“Hey, I think we made a wrong turn at Albuquerque.”

“Really? Are you saying I'm Bugs Bunny?”

Stiles giggles, “Didn't know if you'd catch that.”

“I did watch cartoons as a kid. I wasn't raised as a wild animal.”

* * *

 

They continue to sleep at the most disreputable motels they can find, ones that will rent by the hour, paying only in cash. People never really give them a second glance in those types of places, and that suits them just fine.

They don't see Stiles's face on the evening news anymore, and that makes them sleep easier. Stiles's nightmares begins to happen with less and less frequency, but they continue to sleep in the same bed wrapped up as close as they possibly can get to each other.

They are a pack of only two, and they are content with that fact.

Finally, one night, in small hours of the morning, around two or so, Stiles asks, “Yo, Derek, you still awake?”

Drowsily, Derek replies, “Yeah.”

Stiles squirms and wiggles to face Derek. “Can I kiss you?” He begins to nervously chew on his bottom lip.

Derek's eyes widen, and he searches Stiles's face, before leaning forward and pressing his lips to Stiles's. Stiles eyes widen, and then his mouth is opening and his tongue is running against Derek's bottom lip. Derek parts his lips and Stiles presses against Derek, enthusiastically pushing his tongue into Derek's mouth. Derek's hands run down Stiles's back, and he slows down Stiles's enthusiasm, making the kiss gentler, more tentative exploration than anything else.

They continue, lazily exploring each other's mouths, before Stiles pulls back and gazes at Derek's face. He clears his throat, then speaks, “I don't want to go back.”

“Then we won't.”

“Promise?”

Derek's eyes are serious, when he replies, “I promise, Stiles.”

**Author's Note:**

> You can follow me on tumblr at pinkglitterygoth for my personal/Hannibal blog, but I just started a TW sideblog at apackofourown while I work on a massive fuck it, let's fix it fic.


End file.
